


Guster's First and Second Laws

by gloss



Category: Psych
Genre: Comics, Cosplay, Geekery, LARPing, M/M, friendship kinks, kitties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's happened and Gus is head over heels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guster's First and Second Laws

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



"Comics are stupid," Shawn informed Gus.

He flopped backward onto Gus's bed, kicked off his checkerboard Vans with the broken-down heels, and bounced in place.

"Did you hear me?"

Gus closed the issue of West Coast Avengers and re-filed it in the longbox before he replied. "I heard you."

Shawn hooked his toes into one of his Vans and spun it around, then let it fly. It hit Gus's bare calf.

Gus longed to wear shoes as great as Shawn's. His mother said they provided no arch support; Shawn would be wheelchair-bound by age thirty and Gus would thank her.

"You heard, but you're not *listening*," Shawn said. His mom said that all the time.

"I'm --"

"Comics are stupid!" Shawn grabbed an old Teen Titans issue and threw it like a Frisbee. Its pages fluttered in the air before it hit Gus's desk, skidded, and overturned his pouch of Capri Sun. "They're for stupid kids. And heroes are stupid, too."

"_You're_ stupid," Gus retorted, hurrying to clean up the mess. His chest hurt, like several ribs just got ripped out. The punch was soaking across the comics' pages like long, bloody fingers. "You're stupider than, than --"

He couldn't think of anything stupider than not liking comics.

*Plus*, that drink was all the sugary treat he could have in one week and now it was gone.

"Stupid," Gus muttered, mopping up the red puddle.

But Shawn wouldn't let it go. "No, they are! They're stupid! Why are they heroes?"

"Because they want to help." Gus's throat hurt.

"Yeah? Why?" Shawn swiped the hair out of his eyes. "Who wants *another* cop in the world? Who needs that? Nobody! Why don't they just enjoy themselves? What's wrong with them?"

"That's not how it works." Gus sat back down and tidied up the pile of comics, straightening them, aligning their edges, until he could breathe more easily. Without looking up, he said, "Superheroes are born out of trauma. Something terrible happens to them and they grow up to fight injustice and tyranny --"

Shawn screwed up his face in disgust. "Seriously? You're telling me that if you could fly, you wouldn't just --" He flapped his arms, but all Gus could see was an Emperor penguin commencing his mating dance. "*Fly*? You'd need some kind of excuse?"

"I'm sure flying is a lot of fun," Gus said carefully as he retrieved the Red Phantom annual from Shawn's destruction zone. He stowed it back in its bag, then tucked that into its place in the longbox. "That isn't the point --"

Shawn bounced up and down, faster, his arms flapping wildly. "C'mon, Gus! Live a little!"

*

"I'm Baggo Frohdins, and this is my loyal, perpetually flustered associate, Gamwide Samsee." Shawn added a broad, sunny smile that never faltered. The receptionist glared at him, but he continued to smile, hands on the desk, fingers tapping lightly.

They were investigating a ring of Siamese cat smugglers. Coming through Santa Barbara harbor, the larger, more aggressive Russian-bred cats were dominating local cat shows and decimating pet shops. When two owners turned up dead, the case got really interesting.

"Those aren't even real names," Gus whispered as soon as the receptionist had turned the corner.

Shawn arched his brow. "Oh, aren't they?"

"No," Gus said. "They're not. That's what I said."

Shawn patted Gus's shoulder. He sounded sad. Disappointed, even. "They're never real names, Gus. I thought you knew that."

"I do know that," Gus said, but Shawn just squeezed his shoulder harder. "What I meant was --"

"Gus, Gus, Gus. You don't have to explain yourself to me."

But Gus did. Gus always did. Whatever Shawn wanted to know, demanded to hear, wormed his way into, craved for no discernible reason: whatever it was, Gus would give it to him.

That was how it always had been, always would be.

The secretary looked around the corner. "Mr. Frohdins?"

"That's _Froydins_," Shawn said, suddenly adopting a vaguely German, possibly Dutch, accent. He drew a **U** in the air, crowned with two stabbed dots. "With the, how you say? Ze heimlich."

"Umlaut," Gus muttered.

"Gesundheit," Shawn said.

*

His parents had long maintained that Shawn had Gus enthralled. That boy can do no wrong in your eyes, his mother liked to say. And you so smart otherwise.

That simply wasn't true. Gus had no trouble accepting the fact that Shawn could be wrong. Shawn was wrong about *lots* of things. In fact, Gus maintained a list.

**Things Shawn Spencer Has Been Wrong About (This Year)**   


  * what girls' nipples look like
  * the existence of a secret level on Duck Hunt and how to get there
  * how to spell "aggiornamento"
  * availability of Québécois Garbage Pail Kids "somewhere out of town, maybe Golita, I don't remember, get off my case, *God*"
  * the fatal effects of Pepsi and Pop Rocks
  * that teachers sleep in cubbyholes over the weekends and summers, folded up like lawn chairs



No one was right all the time, least of all Shawn. Gus wasn't stupid; he didn't *believe* Shawn, not most of the time. He could be Shawn's friend without believing him. Besides, they had tried the hypnosis kit advertised in the back of Mad without any luck.

So Gus was not about to give up on comics, just because Shawn suddenly claimed they were stupid.

Comics were beautiful. They took the stuff of myths -- flight, strength, death and vengeance -- and distilled that down, all the way down to the perfect essence. Each panel was practically a whole novel; the grid of panels was as pure a formula as any Gus could imagine. All the irrelevant crap fell off the panel and disappeared into the blank gutters.

Gus appreciated, more than anything, the _rigor_ of comics. It wasn't easy to ignore life's messiness, but that's what comics did. That's what *heroes* did.

*

The accounting firm was a dead end. They'd never heard of either victim. What was more, the CEO claimed to be allergic to cat dander.

Shawn took great delight in the word. "Dander," he said, chuckling, as they left the office. "Dander. Why, you're in fine dander today, my good sir! Oh, thank you, you're looking quite dandery yourself."

Gus checked his watch and groaned when he saw the time.

"What?" Shawn asked. "Is it your dander? Can I dander you? Don't be dandered, Gus."

"I have to get going," Gus told him.

Shawn followed him into the elevator and crowded him into the corner. "Why?"

"I have an appointment."

"What's your appointment?" Shawn dropped his voice. "Is it dander-related?"

"It's private." They hit the lobby, then the blazing sun of the parking lot.

Shawn, however, was a dog with a soup bone, determined to suck out every last bit of marrow. "Ah, so it's embarrassing."

"No, it's private."

Shawn hurried to keep up with Gus. "Proctologist? Masseuse? Urologist? Uranus? Ha, I said anus. Um, IRS? Exterminator? Do you have bedbugs, Gus? You can tell me. From a safe distance, of course, while wearing a hazmat suit, which, incidentally, would really set off your soulful eyes. No? No exterminator? Well, that's good, I suppose. Hmmm." He pursed his lips and tapped one fingers against his chin. Gus started walking again, quickening his pace even more. "Is it...come on, brain, think, no whammies, no whammies, *think*. Anesthesiologist?"

Gus stopped short and Shawn banged into him. "Why would an anesthesiologist be a private matter?"

"I don't know!" Shawn spread his arms wide and raised his voice. "You're the one with all the secrets! You tell me!"

"I don't have any secrets. I just have an appointment."

"I don't buy it," Shawn said. "Sounds fishy to me. Even, dare I say it? Dandery. Yes. There, I said it." He lifted his chin. "And I'm not taking it back."

Gus shooed Shawn away from the driver's side of the car. "Nothing fishy."

"Is this the part where we undergo a series of comical misunderstandings, the consequences of which will start to spiral out of control, and we only resolve our issues by the skin of our teeth at the very end of Act III?"

"No," Gus said.

He unlocked the car and slid inside.

Shawn, as usual, dawdled. When he had finished plucking a gardenia from the hedge, offered it to a passing jogger, *and* gotten her phone number, and only then, did he finally get into the passenger seat.

Shawn's shirt was half a size too small, just enough to rise and show his waist, the whisper of silky hair at his navel. In the car, he crowded Gus, just as he always did, and his arm was hot from the sun.

Gus was still getting used to this, to the fact that he could *look* at Shawn, appreciate him, even. This was something new and it made him shiver, just a little.

He knew Shawn did the shirt thing on purpose. Didn't mean it didn't work like a charm, though.

Shawn reached around Gus's head and pretended to pluck another flower from behind his ear.

"Thank you," Gus said. He placed the gardenia on the dash.

Shawn beamed, then abruptly sobered up. "Where were we? Oh! Comical misunderstandings! How I love them."

"How many times do I have to tell you? We're not living in Three's Company, and you're no Jack Tripper."

"Yet if you'd just put on the wig, you'd make such a great Suzanne Somers." Shawn sighed heavily, his shoulders drooping. "Why do you hate fun, Gus?"

"I thought Juliet was Suzanne Somers," Gus said as he pulled out into traffic. "Wouldn't that make more sense?"

"Hardly. Oh, Gus, you poor innocent fool." Shawn blew a long raspberry. "Juliet is Janet, intelligent, very sensible and even more uptight, yet possessed of a smoldering sensuality. You, my friend, are Chrissy, sunny and beautiful and ditzy."

"I am not ditzy," Gus said, wounded.

"Aren't you? Whatever." Shawn waved his hand. "I can't keep track. All I know is that Lassie's Mr. Furley, only he manages to dress even worse."

"And you're not just pretending to be gay," Gus reminded him.

Shawn fluttered his lashes. "That, too."

*

"Are you watching?" Shawn called from the roof of the garage. "Are you?"

From where he stood on the lawn, all Gus could see was the flicker of Shawn's red cape and a crescent-moon of sandy hair.

Gus knew they were going to get caught. The more Shawn yelled, the closer that moment came.

He spent most of his time waiting to get caught, and the rest of it getting caught and then regretting getting caught. But the waiting part, that was exhilarating. That made all the rest worth it.

"Are you watching? Gus? GUS! Watch!"

Gus backed up into the hedge. "I'm watching."

"Don't look away!"

"I'm not."

If anyone could get away with this, it was Shawn. Gus was the only kid in their class -- probably, to be honest, the whole school, including the teachers -- who knew Newton's laws of motion *and* gravitation by heart. He knew Shawn was going to fall just as surely as they were going to get caught. Those were two inflexible laws.

But still -- maybe. Just maybe, he'd do it.

And Gus would be there.

The sky vaulted, bright and endless, over them. Gus swallowed and felt the sun blaze in his belly. Shawn's Vans slapped on the roof.

"Here I go!"

Gus inhaled, the sun dazzled, Shawn's cape snapped. He rose off the roof, arms spread, cape billowing, scrawny legs churning the air like an egg beater.

*

The case of Russian cats had presented what Chief Vick delicately called "challenges" when it came to evidence. The city could hardly lock up a dozen cats in the evidence room and hope for the best.

Buzz had taken two litters, but no one wanted the largest, dumbest cat, the one who had managed to make a bed of Lassiter's second-best suit jacket and a litter box out of the chief's filing cabinet.

That was how Shawn gave Sinbad to Gus. He called it a half-birthday present, but Gus's half-birthday wasn't for another five weeks, and Shawn knew that as well as Gus.

"Anniversary present?" Shawn had tried next, shoving the cat at Gus and trying to look adorable. Adorable, when Shawn put effort into it, meant squinched-up face and cajoling tones.

It was pretty creepy.

"No pets allowed, Shawn, you know that." Gus wasn't lying about that; the building's rule had been quite useful in keeping Shawn himself from moving in.

Gus was a romantic, sure, but he knew he couldn't *live* with Shawn, not full-time. Not without becoming Juliet and Lassiter's next big murderer.

"Took care of that," Shawn told him airily. "Turns out Mrs. Popkin in the management office is cuckoo-crazy for pineapple almond cookies and you know who just so happens to live over a pineapple almond cookie factory. Presto-chango, wham-bam-somebody got his handsome life partner a lease exemption."

And so Gus, in the space of several weeks, found himself with both a boyfriend and an eighteen-pound cat. One of them was currently clawing at Gus's back while he unlocked his door and snurgling his ear, while the other was on the kitchen counter washing his face.

"Tell me, tell me, tell me --" Shawn said as he tugged Gus's shirt from his waistband. "C'mon! Where're you going? Where?"

"If you must know --" Gus didn't want to, but he disentangled himself from Shawn's grabby, roaming hands and lifted Sinbad off the counter.

"And I must," Shawn replied. "I really must."

"--I'm going to a LARP." Gus topped off Sinbad's water bowl and hurried down the hall. "And I'm late. I have to get dressed."

"I'm sorry," Shawn called after him. "Did you just say you're going to a fart?"

"LARP."

"Fart. Why would you need to dress up for one? Also, how would one *attend* a fart? In my experience, they pretty much just happen, no organization or RSVP required."

"LARP, Shawn." Gus had to raise his voice to be heard through the door. "Live-action role-playing."

Shawn pushed the door open and launched himself at the bed, just like he'd always done. These days, instead of a twin bed and Captain Atom sleeping bag, Gus had a queen-sized bed, tencel linens and a matelassé coverlet, but Shawn didn't seem to notice.

Gus ducked behind the closet door. "Don't look!"

"Okay, now I have to look," Shawn said.

"I --" Gus zipped up his costume, threw the cape around his shoulders, and took a deep breath. He'd wanted this to be a secret, and, failing that, a surprise. "Don't laugh."

Since they were kids, Shawn had considered it his mission to save Gus from a life of nerdery and geekdom. Without me, he liked to point out, you'd be one lonely little basement dweller.

They both let Shawn believe that. It was pretty much one of the cornerstones of their relationship.

In the years after Shawn left, however, Gus did just fine. Got a girlfriend, got a BSc., sang in an all-male quartet, started a good, solid career. Maybe it wasn't quite what he had always expected, but how many men actually do marry Jasmine Guy, earn double doctorates (cladistics and medicine), and publish several slim chapbooks of poetry? All before thirty, of course; for his thirties, there was going to be a whole new slew of accomplishments and milestones.

Okay, so he was thirty now, a bisexual cat-owner, wearing a superhero costume.

Life was a lot sloppier than you could ever imagine when you were a kid.

Gus cleared his throat and held the door against him. He needed to set up the reveal. "Superheroes come from a childhood of --"

"I know, I know, you've told me a million times," Shawn said. "Superheroes are born out of melodrama --"

He broke off as Gus frowned and began to shake his head. He was hidden behind the door, but they didn't need to see each other to know what was going on.

"Drama?" Shawn tried. "They're born out of drama. Yeah, that's right."

Gus could only wait.

"Brahma, the beer of summer? Brazil's lightest, cheapest export ale, coming soon to a fraternity reunion near you?"

"Trauma," Gus said. "_Trauma_."

"That's what I said." Shawn smacked his lips. "Whoa, I could really go for a beer right now. Wonder why."

"As I was saying," Gus said, "that's the founding assumption behind my LARP. That the trauma --"

"You know what's the founding assumption of mine?" Shawn clapped his hands. "Heinz baked beans! Or maybe chili. Love the chili."

"The trauma --" Gus tried. It was getting kind of stuffy back here behind the door.

"Because they're the musical fruit, you see," Shawn said.

"Shawn."

"What?"

Gus pushed the door away and stepped into the middle of the room. "I'm going to my LARP."

"Yeah, well, I think I'm experiencing some serious childhood trauma right now." Shawn covered his face with both hands. "Gus, what are you *wearing*?"

Gus smoothed his palm over his head and gave a saucy little twitch to his cape. "You like it?"

"I don't think I can ever like anything ever again," Shawn moaned. "I think I'd rather be --"

"Stop fronting," Gus told him. "You know I'm rocking this."

"You're rocking something, all right." Shawn peeked out between two fingers. "Is that *pleather*?"

Hands on his hips, chest thrown out, Gus grinned. "All natural. From the codpiece to --"

Shawn tumbled forward, out of his chair onto the floor. "Stop right there!" He hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth. "Codpiece. You said codpiece. _You're wearing a codpiece_. The world is ending and I'm at ground zero and, and --" He heaved a breath and whimpered before adding, "and I'm gonna die staring at your codpiece."

Sinbad sniffed Shawn's cheek, then suckled his earlobe.

Shawn rolled back and forth. "Who are you? Where's my best friend? Where's Gus? I want Gus back!"

"Shawn, I'm right here. I'm Nite Owl." Gus tried to look imposing yet consoling.

*

From the garage roof, Shawn launched himself at the tree-shaped drying rack. All Gus could do was watch.

Shawn caught the lowest branch of the rack and swung, suspended, against the sun. His cape collapsed against him, molding itself to his back. His knees came up, his head went down, and he fell backward.

When Gus made it across the yard -- an impossible ordeal, like swimming the Bosphorus, like mucking the Aegean stables -- Shawn's nose was bleeding. Blood gushed over his laughing mouth, splashed his chest, soaked the checkerboard pattern on his sneakers.

"No one can fly," Shawn said hysterically, wheezing with giggles. "Gus! Gus! Did you see?"

*

Shawn sniffed heavily as he struggled up to his knees, then climbed onto the bed. When he did speak, he sounded sulky. "You're Nite Owl?"

"Yes. Nite Owl II, to be perfectly accurate, courtesy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's groundbreaking 1986 work of genius, Watchmen. He was smart, resourceful, respectful of --"

"Why not what's his name? Nightbat? Darkhawk? Angry Black Guy?" Shawn poked Gus's chest. "_You_ know who I mean."

"Nighthawk?" Gus asked, not quite believing his ears. "From Straczynski's relaunch of Squadron Supreme?"

Shawn looked blank. Also slightly guilty.

Gus pressed on. "Since when do you read comics?"

Shawn traced the coverlet's pattern with his finger and refused to meet Gus's eye. "Since I got stuck giving somebody's stinky cat his shots one long week while somebody got to go to awesome jury duty and abandoned me and the kitty like yesterday's garbage."

"Wow," Gus said. He sat next to Shawn, his cape tangling around his legs. "How about that."

"How about *this*?" Shawn shook Gus's arm. "When were you going to tell me about this?"

"Nothing to tell," Gus said tightly. "On occasion, I like to dress up and LARP with a bunch of likeminded associates. What about *you*, Shawn? Mr. I'm Too Cool for Comics, Gus You Suck, But I Have Great Hair and A Sharp Wit, Ha-Ha?"

Outraged, Shawn simply stared at Gus for long, silent moments. Whenever Gus opened his mouth to say something, Shawn shook his head.

Sinbad wove his tubby body between their legs, yowled meditatively, then jumped onto Shawn's lap.

That seemed to shake something loose in Shawn.

"At least I don't dress up like, like --" Shawn banged the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Like some freak loser!"

"Now you're just being mean," Gus told him. When he crossed his arms, his costume creaked a little. He recrossed his arms, just to hear it again. *Nice*.

Shawn sagged back. "Maybe I am. You can't prove it."

"You used to like dressing up. You planned months in advance for every Halloween. You *never* plan for anything."

Shawn smiled slightly, nodding. "That's true. I do love a good trick or treat." He looked up, caught Gus starting to smile at him, and jumped to his feet. "For the *candy*, Gus, for the lovely, lovely bountiful *candy*."

He paced around, bouncing a shoulder or a hip off the wall or furniture as he came to them, like a pinball with very good hair, agitated and aimless.

Sinbad followed Shawn, tripping him, meowing at him, all but getting up on his hind legs and doing the Charleston.

Arm outstretched, Shawn waved the cat and Gus off. "You're both crazy."

"Is this about Henry?" Gus said. "This is because --"

"What? No! No, of course not." Shawn twirled into the Denial Dance, heavy on the shoulder rolls and soft-shoe and just a little in the way of flailing arms. "My dad has nothing to do with, with --. With *me* or the world or my place in it, that's just flat-out ridiculous, utterly absurd and absurdly, uh. Utter. And you know something else?"

"What?"

"You're better than that, Gus. I really believed you were better than that. Blaming a guy's *parents* for his personality and life choices? Whoever heard of such a thing?"

"Oh, I don't know," Gus said and leaned back. Got comfortable. "Sigmund Freud, maybe?"

"Let me ask you one question, and it's an important one." Shawn's cheeks were bright pink, the tendons in his neck tense.

"All right," Gus said after taking a breath.

"Is it --?" Shawn broke off and shook his head.

"What? Is it what?"

"This game of yours. This fart --"

"LARP, Shawn."

"-- Koi carp, yeah. Is it --" Shawn frowned and lowered his voice as he stared down at his palms and interlaced fingers. "Is it *erotic*, Gus?"

"No!" Laughter burst from Gus's chest. Shawn had to be joking; he had to know how ridiculous that was, how --.

Was Shawn seriously jealous?

Gus leaned forward and spoke as clearly as he could. "God, no."

"Oh." Shawn nodded slowly as he rose to his feet. "Well, there's your problem."

Gus couldn't stop smiling. Relief sluiced off him, leaving nothing but happy curiosity. "Is it, now?"

"Sure," Shawn told him, adopting his authoritative professorial tone, the one that mixed Dr. Smith from Lost in Space and César the Dog Whisperer. "My own research has shown conclusively that Guses require much higher, more regular doses of -- how you say? -- _sexin' it up_ than other human males."

"I see," Gus said. "That's very interesting."

"What you need, Nite Gus, is --. Wait." Shawn shook his head and started pacing.

"What is it?" There was always something.

"This Batman --"

"Nite Owl," Gus said precisely. "And he's a lot more like Blue Beetle than --"

"He wears a cape and has a night name, Gus. He's Batman."

"Point," Gus admitted.

"This guy, whoever he is. Does he have a sidekick?"

Gus stared at him; Shawn circled his hand to hurry up the response. "No. So?"

"You need a sidekick, Gus. It's in the superhero manual!"

"...well, there was Rorschach, but he was more a partner, and also crazy, and they parted ways after the Keene Act --."

Shawn held up his hand. "Don't be ridiculous, Gus. Rorschach was one of the Sweat Hogs."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

They regarded each other. Sinbad rolled onto his back and let out a long, moaning snore.

"Do you want to come LARP?" Gus asked. He focused on a point somewhere beyond Shawn's right earlobe and tried not to breathe.

"I want --" Shawn shrugged. His expression shifted into something suppler, something Gus didn't quite have a name for. "Yeah. I guess I do."

*

Gus was an orderly child. He enjoyed lists of words, marbles sorted by weight and color, Advent calendars with one sweet per day, model airplane kits and their numbered pieces, chronologies and bibliographies. Boxes to put things in and hold them safe.

More than any of that, however, he loved what was bigger, faster, *wilder*.

Shawn blurred and spilled, stained everything red, kept moving, and Gus did all he could to keep up.

*

Gus jury-rigged a halfway acceptable Flash costume for Shawn out of red longjohns and a hooded sweatshirt.

"I feel weird. Do you feel weird?" Shawn couldn't stop jogging in place.

"I feel late," Gus said.

"And it's not because I'm dressed like Pa Ingalls," Shawn continued as if Gus hadn't spoken. Musingly, he added, "Like my stomach hurts, and I'm a little woozy, and --" He snapped his fingers and straightened up. "I get it! This was our very first fight. _Awww--_" Shawn hugged himself as he tipped his head to the side and smiled moonily. When he spoke, he sounded like a deranged kindergarten teacher, drunk on schnapps. "It's a very special day, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes, it is."

Gus snorted and pushed Shawn down the hall. "This is hardly our first fight."

Shawn dropped his arms. "It isn't?"

"No."

"Oh. Damn." He brightened slightly. "Should I get you flowers and candy, just in case?"

Gus adjusted the straps on his costume. "That won't be necessary." He checked one buckle, tightened it, then knew he had to check on Shawn. Sure enough, Shawn's eyebrows were wrinkled up and his pout was starting to plump out. Gus sighed briefly. "But thank you."

Shawn's pout vanished. "No problem! I'll probably get you a half-pound box from See's, just because."

"No pecan buds," Gus reminded him.

"Never ever," Shawn assured him.

They were almost to the door. So close, yet so very, very far.

Shawn reached for Gus's face. Gus tipped his cheek into Shawn's palm and got a pinch for his effort.

"Perv," Shawn said. Fondly, but still. "Big perv."

"What?" Gus's face heated. He'd thought this was a boyfriend moment. He was still figuring out when those happened.

"I want to wear the goggles," Shawn said. "Gus! Can I wear the goggles?"

"No."

As if it pained him, Shawn said, softly but firmly, "I'm going to have to insist on wearing the goggles."

"I know," Gus said and handed them over.

 

[end]


End file.
